


The Scent and Taste of Eden

by Metallic_Sweet



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angels and Demons as Angelic and Demonic Forms, Calling Cards, Crowley's Sexual History, First Kiss, Genderfluid, Historical Accuracy, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mental Health Issues, Other, References to Paradise Lost, Snakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 02:24:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19781314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metallic_Sweet/pseuds/Metallic_Sweet
Summary: Aziraphale looks at him as Eve upon the apple.or, during the 1906 heatwave, Crowley goes into heat.





	The Scent and Taste of Eden

The year is 1906. It is the 2nd of September. Crowley wakes up not by choice but because it is so hot that, for a moment, he thinks he has been dragged back to Hell for skiving off on his duties since 1811. He bolts upright in bed and immediately tumbles over his own body, tangled in sweaty bedding. Calling cards from Hellish acquaintances, which have piled up on his during his slumber, fly everywhere. 

Lying face down at the foot of his bed, Crowley breathes out. The abundance of calling cards means no one knows he’s been asleep. Initial panic averted, he immediately becomes aware of another problem. 

It’s not just sweat that makes his bedding stick to him. 

His body is hot. Everything beneath his ribs to his knees ache. The flesh between his thighs is wet. As awareness creeps up over the haze of sleep, the heat presses. 

Crowley swallows. His mouth is dry. 

Fuck.

Crowley’s current flat, in which he has successfully hibernated since he briefly woke up for the 1851 Great Exhibition, is in pristine condition. In his few moments of consciousness during the intervening years, it had upgraded with indoor plumbing. Crowley stumbles into the private toilet that appeared at some indeterminate point between now and his last brief period awake in 1885 when he went back to sleep in frustration over the Berlin Conference. He grabs linens from the wardrobe and is incredibly relieved to find that the water coming through the faucet of the tub is clean. 

He glances in the mirror situated over the wash basin. His hair is wild and overgrown, and his pupils are blown. He forces himself to blink and look down as he climbs into the bath. 

As he cleans himself up, Crowley sorts through the most recent calling cards more to distract himself than any interest. Most are from Hastur and Ligur, noting that Crowley has not shown for meetings. Since they have not broken into his flat, Crowley can only assume that he has been inadvertently commended for something he’ll discover as he goes back through the calling cards. This ratchets up Crowley’s irritation, which isn’t helped by how sensitive to the touch his entire body is. 

The other calling cards are from Pestilence. Crowley handles these gingerly, regretting bringing them so close to water. The date on the most recent card indicates Pestilence wanted to call upon him yesterday. Crowley grinds his teeth before flicking the card away from the tub and wiping his hand on a soiled linen with a curse. 

He climbs out of the tub. Tries his very best to dry himself off and not make the problem worse at the same time. Even in private, this is utterly humiliating, and Crowley has to work very hard not to simply lie down on the floor. He wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. It won’t make the weather any cooler. It won’t make Pestilence, based upon the number of calling cards that he’s been left, go away. 

“Fuck,” Crowley groans, limping through his bedroom to the window overlooking the street, “what are the humans wearing now?”

It is, as Crowley suspected, awful.

The only outfit that Crowley can stand against his skin is a slack suit he copies from a department store advertisement in one of the papers piled up inside of his doorway. Too much black, he realises as soon as he steps out of the flat with Pestilence’s most recent card and address. The Victorian mourning trend has not continued, and men wear white collars at this time of the year. They droop in the heat. Crowley attracts a few curious glances for his attire, but less than he might have faced otherwise. He jams his hat further down on his hair, shoves his glasses against the bridge of nose, and storms as quickly as possible across the city. 

Pestilence’s address turns out to be a dining club near to the Hospital for Sick Children. Crowley clenches his teeth briefly before approaching the doorman, who immediately shifts to block the door.

In great discomfort, Crowley stands up straight. Reaches into his coat and withdraws Pestilence’s calling card with the club’s address. He watches the solemn blink, eyes unfolding into the green sclera of one of Pestilence’s proxies.

“Anthony J. Crowley,” the proxy intones; it makes all of his joints ache. “You are expected.”

“Yeah,” he croaks. “I guessed.”

He steps past the doorman, who inhales audibly in his wake. It is only with a great deal of control that Crowley doesn’t immediately engage. To fight or flee or accept a possible—

Crowley walks quickly, teeth clenched against the scream clawing up through his chest.

Pestilence is in the supper room, seated in the table by the fire. She wears a dress and neckline better suited for court presentation and likely years out of date. She glowers at Crowley, all of the other diners unconsciously keeping their distance. Crowley doesn’t attempt to point out to them that this will likely be the last meal they will ever have. 

“Crowley,” Pestilence says, her hair in an outdated style that humans viewing her would excuse for her age, “you’re not looking well.”

“Good evening to you, too,” Crowley mumbles.

He slides awkwardly into the seat opposite. Takes off his hat and resecures his glasses. Pestilence swirls a thin, knobby finger around the rim of her soup bowl. It doesn’t change to the naked eye, but the soup and the bowl are now both cursed objects. Crowley lounges back into his chair, trying to become more comfortable without making the ongoing issue obvious. 

The host brings over a copy of the evening edition and a selection of cigars. Crowley takes the paper and declines the cigars. Pestilence takes one, allowing the host to cut and light it for her. A thin sheen of what will become boils appears where Pestilence’s fingertip brush upon the host’s forefinger. They will burst and spread infection and gangrene.

Crowley stares at the headline. It is probably important. He cannot read it.

“Hmm,” Pestilence hums after taking a deep puff from the cigar. “I can smell you.”

Crowley turns the sheet. It rustles. His hands are shaking.

“Does Below want something from me?” he asks, very careful to keep his tone mild and vaguely subservient.

“Oh no,” Pestilence says, and there’s a hint of power to her tone that makes Crowley want to run away but also turns his knees into jelly. “I have some business that I would like your advice regarding.”

“Oh?” Crowley asks, weakly.

“It is in the planning process,” Pestilence murmurs, “and I noticed your domicile has that fascinating sewer connection and plumbing.”

“Oh,” Crowley says, even weaker.

He looks up from the paper. Pestilence watches him around the cigar smoke. It makes Crowley feel as if he’s the main course.

“I will be using your flat.”

Crowley doesn’t say anything. He nods. Short and jerky. Pestilence smiles at him. 

“Thank you,” she says, gracious as if Crowley even had a choice. 

Out of all the Horsepeople, she has always prided herself on being closest to humans to do the most damage. This is also why Crowley has had the most direct contact with her. He is close to humans. 

“So,” Crowley says, very carefully, “may I be excused? I would stay for, uh, dinner, but I have to find a new flat.”

Pestilence breathes out a mouthful of smoke. Crowley holds his breath.

“Of course,” is the answer, accompanied by an unkind smile, “unless you’d like some company?”

She switches her tongue on _company_ , the dulcet tone on a word of power. Crowley has to grasp the tabletop to stop his legs giving out. He glares at Pestilence, momentarily forgetting about self-preservation.

 _You didn’t have to do that,_ he wants to say.

 _I hate you,_ he wants to scream.

“No,” he chokes.

He shoves himself into an approximation of upright and hurries as steadily as possible towards the door. The only consolation is Pestilence doesn’t laugh at his retreating back. 

But, then again, Pestilence is a Horseperson. She never cared in the first place. 

Crowley shoves past the doorman, jams his hat on his head, and runs. 

It wouldn’t be the hardest thing to find a new flat with a little magic, but Crowley is in no condition to do anything but the most rudimentary tricks right now. 

He ends up booking into serviced apartments in The Savoy. The only magic he uses is to get his name on the top of the waitlist; he doesn’t attempt to do anything more complicated. He isn’t worried about being noticed by Below or Above. 

Not for magic. 

Crowley sheds his human form as soon as he is alone in the foyer. It’s a mistake. The snake flesh against the floor and carpet is excruciating. Too much texture. Too many scents. Crowley returns to human form, biting the carpet to stifle whatever noise his traitorous mouth wants to make.

_Damn_

Crawling towards the bath, he reviews his options:

Wait this out. Even as he thinks this, he knows from experience it is stupidity. There is no guarantee it will pass. He doesn’t need to worry about humans, but if any other of his kind—demonic or angelic—try to make contact, Crowley will not be able to control himself.

The option, obvious:

Find someone to sort him out. 

Pestilence is an option. They’ve done that before because she’s always on Earth and is the most receptive to Crowley without creating unnecessary baggage. He would likely delay her at least for a day from her most recent campaign. But Pestilence is a Horseperson, and she would never consider any needs aside from her own. Crowley cannot face another encounter where he wakes up, no longer burning and needy but feeling worse than ill-used. He isn’t strong enough for that. 

Hastur is another option. It would be awful and awkward, but Hastur would, unlike most other demons, understand the circumstances. Their history of association and Hastur’s own knowledge of Pestilence would mitigate their natural dislike for each other. They would both, however, hate it. They would deliberately misuse each other. Crowley would feel worse about himself and his non-existent standards than if he went with Pestilence.

There have been other demons, but they are gone. Due to war or otherwise, they do not walk in the Earthly realm. 

Humans are not an option. The nephilim are proof of that.

In mounting despair, Crowley thinks of Aziraphale but discards that even quicker than considering a human. He doesn’t know where Aziraphale is currently.

He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. 

So, really, no options.

Crowley, curled upon himself on the floor in the hideous heat, feels extraordinarily alone.

It is the 4th of September 1906 and Crowley is woken from fitful slumber by a fête down in the courtyard. He lies for a moment, not sure of which way is up. He doesn’t know when he fell asleep. 

Everything is still unbearably hot and wet.

He pushes himself upward and towards the window, hoping for a distraction. Voices, a singer, and a full orchestra filter up through cigar, pipe, and cigarette smoke. Crowley grips the window frame and pulls himself upright, bracing himself against it to peer down.

His mouth goes dry.

Aziraphale is immediately recognisable, even though he is surrounded by a chattering dinner crowd. Among the humans and the smoke, he glows. All angels do, just as demons carry a certain miasma that darkens their personal space. Angels cannot help their divine aura nor the way humans, when not compelled to look elsewhere, flock to them. A beacon to anyone in need of a miracle. With a sense of wonder. 

Crowley boggles at him, at his wide smile and full lips parted in laughter, and—

Below, Aziraphale jolts as if struck by lightning.

He lifts his head.

Their eyes meet.

Crowley shoves himself away from the window. His mouth is open as if to scream, but no sound escapes. 

The damage is done. 

In the Before:

Crowley’s memories are hazy, but he remembers the way the Garden smelled when new.

It smelled of mulch and compost made from fruit and new leaves. Then, Crowley wasn’t Crawly yet; he hadn’t yet begun his Fall. He didn’t know what hands were, and he didn’t know how to question. In those earliest moments of physical form beyond the light of the new sun and moon and stars, he only held wonder for Creation.

Back then, he hadn’t been he. There was no way to know such things because they hadn’t been created yet. There was Light and the absence of Light, and he remembers holding the twinkling stars made to fill that absence. The Universe was wide and vast, the Garden center of its expanse. 

In the new Garden, there was the Song. The Word from God Herself filled existence, and all of Creation Sang in harmony. Existence itself was simple. There was God, Her Word made into Song among the angels, who had nothing but wonder for Creation. Even the concept of simplicity and complexity was not formed. 

Satan, with doubts and questions and jealousy, brought an end to simplicity. To the harmonious Song. Existence became complex because they learned to notice difference. This was not evil. But it was not the simpleness of Before. 

Crowley guesses that, at some point between that far back in the Before and when he Fell, he made choices. To be _he_ sometimes and _she_ other times and to prefer neither or somewhere in between at others. To be a _whom_ and not a _what_ or a _how_. To be a snake and not, perhaps, an antelope or a sparrow, and to have a preferred form when bodied like a human. 

Or maybe these things were chosen for him, by Her or something else. The fact of the matter is Crowley doesn’t know. He doesn’t or can’t remember, and there isn’t anyone he could ask. He doesn’t know if any other angel or demon sometimes feels less than at home in their own skin. If they sometimes want to be something else, not _he_ nor _her_ nor anything remotely defined. If they feel compelled to shed, even through their forms aren’t tied to earthly rules. 

He doesn’t know, not even when his entire existence is compelled to _be_ with another, filled and overflowing and _needing_. Crowley only knows what he remembers. His existence is not the Before when there was wonder and simplicity. His body—ephemeral, discorporable—is both a gift and a prison. 

In that moment when he spies Aziraphale down in the courtyard:

Crowley smells the scent of the Garden and aches. 

This apartment has indoor plumbing, too. 

Crowley cleans himself up with shaking hands. The basin has China accents, the image of two bathing women in blue taunting his sight as he wets a soft shaving cloth. He strips himself of the ruined house coat, peeling the fabric away from himself without daring to look. He watches the water in the basin turn from clear to murky, the cloth clean to grimy. 

There is a knock on the front door. The raised, polite voice of the floor’s butler: 

“Mister Crowley, you have a visitor.”

Crowley grits his teeth. Wills his body into an evening suit like that of the man who stood next to Aziraphale when he looked out the window. He drops the cloth into the basin and steps as carefully as possible into the parlor. To the bar. There are two bottles of Chablis Premier cru. 

“Enter.” 

The door opens. Crowley does not turn. He picks the right bottle, which has already been opened to breathe. Aziraphale’s presence is obvious, even as he speaks a meaningless pleasantry as the butler closes the door. Only once the human is out of the room and protected by the door does Crowley dare to turn. 

In the Garden, Aziraphale guarded the Eastern Gate. Crowley has no idea how much Aziraphale knows of what the Garden contained. He would have been familiar only with his Gate and whatever other duties he held Before the First War. A Principality is not an Archangel, nor even a great Power. For all Crowley knows, he may know more of Eden than Aziraphale ever could. 

The way Aziraphale looks at him now: 

It is how Eve looked upon the apple. 

“Crowley,” he says as Crowley holds out the wine bottle, “what are you doing here?” 

He takes the bottle. Crowley watches him glance at the label. Swallow. He looks back up, eyebrows drawing together. Blinks. He inhales. Audibly. Stares.

His eyes are entirely blue. 

“Crowley,” he says, and there is nothing so great and terrible as the _hunger_ in Aziraphale’s voice, gaze, focus, “you’re glowing.”

In the Before, there was no language. There was only sensation. There was, in the earliest recesses of Crowley’s memory, only Light and Heat. He did not burn and never would, but that was not demonic nor holy fire. It was simply Light and Heat and all that he knew:

Her, the Light, and _heat_ —

“Aziraphale,” and it is not in tongues, it is in the Song, “lie with me?” 

In the story of how Eve and Adam fell: 

God became angry and passed judgement, bringing suffering into the world. 

Crowley never thought it was fair. 

Eve and Adam were God’s favourite creations. They were created with all the good upon which Satan and the Fallen spat. They gazed at everything with such joy and wonder and adoration. Crawly loved watching them, even though he was already Fallen. He thought that they were sweet. He loved to creep through the bushes and lie up in the trees of the Garden, watching how the humans played and laughed and sang joyfully. They were innocent to the war angels and demons fought around them. 

Crowley might not remember how he Fell, not exactly, but he remembers this. 

When Satan escaped Gabriel’s sight and entered Eden once more through the secret path in the Tigres, he came to Crawly in search of a body. Crawly’s only mistake was that he had gone to sleep in the Garden, lulled into repose by the smell of soil and private joy in observing Eve and Adam. Satan liked his flexible, subtle form. The Serpent was known to be a wily creature, and Eve and Adam had nothing but trust. 

Crawly couldn’t have fought off Satan even if he tried. 

It’s not fair. 

Crowley knows this well. 

In comparison to that first and greatest trespass, Crowley has always been adamant that he chose his partners and that they consent. Pestilence. Hastur. A few other demons who have long gone. Over the past six millennia, when Crowley becomes too consumed by heat, he fills his bed with a body that cannot hurt him. Physically, yes, especially with Pestilence, but sometimes that’s the point: if he hurts himself first, no one else can. 

For Crowley is Fallen and that is what he deserves. 

But it is not what Aziraphale deserves. 

Across from him, Aziraphale still holds the wine bottle. He looks at Crowley as Adam did upon Eve after eating the apple. Crowley remembers the time when Satan stole his body as if in a fevered haze, and to see that look in this angel’s eyes—

“No,” Crowley chokes.

He forces himself to his knees. Digs his fingers into the carpet. He thinks of Aziraphale, back in the heyday of Rome, and how he beamed over the oysters. How that twinkling look in his eyes, impish and innocent, made Crowley pause. 

“Go,” he begs because when they met during the Crusades, both of them frustrated and lost, and all he wanted was for Aziraphale to stay. “Go away.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and it is in Song, real Song, not the mangled approximation that a demon or Horseperson can make, “look at me?”

When Crowley looks up, Aziraphale is kneeling down. He sets the bottle carefully to the side, the hunger in his eyes reigned in just as carefully. He leans forward. Into Crowley’s space. He keeps his hands in view and doesn’t touch. Crowley can see how his entire body trembles with the effort. The restraint.

A fern, ready to unfurl.

“You sang for me,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley leans forward, towards the angelic Light. 

“I do,” Crowley whispers, sings. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale sings back, “I would lie with you, if you will have me.” 

Crowley kisses him.

In the millennia since Satan stole his form: 

Crowley can count the number of times someone has kissed him. 

This is the one. 

Aziraphale pulls back. Gazes upon him. For a moment, the hunger is banked. Crowley breathes in. Out. Watches Aziraphale do the same and how his eyes widen. 

The scent of the Garden fills their nostrils. 

“Crowley?” he sings, awed, and Crowley knows:

This is the first time that Aziraphale has smelled what the Garden was like when it was made. 

To Crowley’s knowledge, he is the only creature that smells like this. Other demons and angels and most of God’s creations go into heat, but they all have their own smells. Sex, like all of Creation, is meant to reflect God’s love. It is part of their design. It became twisted later. It was initially left out in humans and contrived as part of suffering when Eve and Adam fell. In humans, though, sex also brings closeness, fulfilment, and new life. 

For God is merciful, and mercy can be miserable.

Crowley doesn’t know why he smells of the Garden when it was new. Perhaps it is God’s mercy in the role that Crowley has been made to play. It brings him no comfort. If the plan is ineffable, then all of this was meant to happen. That Aziraphale, Principality and Guardian of the Eastern Gate, did not know what the very Garden he watched over smelt like Before the First War:

Crowley pities Aziraphale. 

He reaches up. Out. 

Aziraphale takes his hands in his. Cups his palms around Crowley’s knuckles. He leans down, forwards, and presses his lips to Crowley’s fingers. 

“If you will have me,” he repeats, an offering. 

There is no language. 

Crowley sheds his form. 

The human skin, the snake’s long back: they fold away into the shadows. In place of the Light inherent to the holy and angelic, the Dark and the flecks of stars swallowed by black holes remains. This didn’t change with the Falling. The memory of the universe before the stars were made, when Crowley knew nothing but wonder— 

He didn’t share this with anyone else. He couldn’t because they wouldn’t have understood. Wouldn’t have appreciated. Wouldn’t have cared, not really, which was the worst part. They responded to Crowley in heat with carnal desire, and he took them to meet his ends as Eve and Adam did under their last day in Eden’s sun. 

But Aziraphale:

Crowley will show him his heart. 

Coupling with Aziraphale is different. 

Aziraphale is made of Light and innumerable eyes. In Crowley’s darkness speckled with star fragments, he throws everything into stark relief. The black holes that swirl and twist latch onto the Light, distorting the eyes and vision. The scent of the Garden thins and thickens, fanned by heat and magic, holy and demonic. 

There is no hiding either of them. That is not the goal. 

At some point, they find themselves entangled, limbs and skin and corporal, on the wooden floorboards. Crowley spreads himself out as Aziraphale grabs the wine bottle. They share swigs, strangely thirsty, and find the wine fantastic. 

“Miracle,” Crowley hears himself say. 

“Oh no,” Aziraphale breathes, and there are eyes of gold and blue and sunlight itself crinkling with laughter, “it’s a Premier cru.”

Crowley laughs. Sets the bottle aside. He sits up and crawls onto Aziraphale’s lap. Licks along his jaw. Neck. A little teasing nip. 

“You taste like that,” he whispers.

Aziraphale laughs again, hands between their thighs. He slips his fingers into Crowley to make him bite down. Harder. 

“No lies,” he teases, stroking up and down and making Crowley squirm. “What do I really taste like?”

Crowley sucks. Once. Twice. Loosens his jaw. He pulls back enough to gaze at the broken skin where his fangs sunk in. The puckering flesh is already closing. 

“In the beginning,” and he feels how Aziraphale goes completely still, “when God made Earth, She brought forth grass and the herb yielded seed.” 

He looks up. Aziraphale’s mouth is open. A thousand, infinite eyes stare at him. Wide and wondering and so very good—

“You taste of Eden and all that blooms.”

Aziraphale sheds his form and enters Crowley anew. 

It is the 6th of September when the heat finally passes. 

The heatwave that the British Isles experienced over the past week is the highest ever recorded. In a small section of Southgate, an entire block is closed for cholera. It doesn’t make the papers, although it causes quite a bit of local trouble. No more beyond as only local post delivery and business is disrupted. 

Pestilence has sent along two calling cards, updating him. The first arrived while he and Aziraphale were occupied. The second arrived to rudely awaken him by falling directly into his open mouth. He spits it out with a strangled gasp. It tastes vaguely like rot. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale calls from the foyer, “tea service is here.” 

“Thanks,” Crowley calls back after he tips the last of the wine they had drunk in bed into his mouth to clear it out. 

The tea service is excellent. Aziraphale has already tucked into a cup and a slice of apple charlotte. He smiles at Crowley, who sits down adjacent to him with a grunt. 

“I’ve asked for a couple more bottles to be brought up,” he says before nodding to the small stack of calling cards set a good hand’s width away from the food and tea. “I retrieved these before they came to change the rug out. Don’t worry: I didn’t read them.” 

“Oh, joy,” Crowley mumbles before pouring himself a cup of tea.

They sit in silence for a bit. Aziraphale enjoys his charlotte. Crowley sips his tea and prods unenthusiastically at the calling cards. They’re nothing important, since they’re all regarding Pestilence being out and about in London. Crowley doesn’t need to make a report as Pestilence has gone and praised him for being so instrumental to her latest entertainment. The rest of the cards are passive aggressive congratulations. 

Crowley contemplates going back to bed for another fifty years. 

Aziraphale sets his fork down. Dabs his lips with the napkin. He breathes out. A satisfied noise. 

He smiles at Crowley, light and mild and perfectly angelic. 

Crowley wants to kiss that smile and swallow it whole. 

“Anything important?”

“Uh,” Crowley says, and he has to blink, “not really.”

He pours them both more tea. Aziraphale nods approvingly, adding two cubes of sugar and cream. Crowley opens the lid of the pot and peers at the leaves. They won’t tell him anything. 

“How long have you been in London?” 

“I never left,” Aziraphale says, a note of something odd in his voice. “Well, aside from some minor business. I was, ah, learning to dance for a while, you see.” 

Crowley looks up. Squints. Aziraphale looks both pleased and embarrassed. He puts the lid back on the teapot. 

“Dance,” he says. 

“Yes,” is the response, and that is a definite blush creeping on Aziraphale’s neck. “The gavotte was quite popular for a while. I thought it would be a good way to learn more about humans.” 

Crowley makes himself blink. He drags his gaze from the blood rushing up Aziraphale’s neck to his ear. He tries to focus on Aziraphale’s eyes. 

“The gavotte,” he says, rather slowly. “Is that what you were doing… uh…”

“Two days ago,” Aziraphale says, quite helpfully and a bit too kindly. “No, I was attending with a few people I met at a séance.” 

Crowley frowns. Aziraphale’s lips quirk. 

“But,” Crowley starts. 

“They are all the rage these days,” Aziraphale says, eyes twinkling with a bizarre brand of mirth.

He reaches into his lounge jacket and extracts his business card. Crowley takes it to read _A. Z. Fell and Co., Antiquities and Rare Books, City of Westminister, London_. Next to him, Aziraphale helps himself to Crowley’s serving of charlotte because it’s getting cold. 

“I’ve met some very interesting folk,” he says, and Crowley does look up from the card at that informal language; Aziraphale pretends not to notice as he pours a bit of still warm custard over the charlotte. “It seems these days people of means who are interested in Bibles and theological tracts are also very interested in spiritualism.” 

“Are they,” Crowley says, feeling very out of touch. 

Aziraphale nods. His eyes flicker, looking over Crowley, who is wearing only a housecoat he pulled from the wardrobe. Crowley lets him look. Aziraphale’s expression softens as he cuts his spoon through the charlotte. The inspection isn’t awkward. It is warm and even pleasant. 

Even though the heat has passed, Crowley finds he wouldn’t mind laying with Aziraphale again. 

“I’m glad I came,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley looks down. His skin feels hot, but with embarrassment and something he dares not name rather than heat. He sets Aziraphale’s card on top of the pile. It shines in its cleanliness atop the demonic paper. 

“Thanks,” he whispers, “for staying.” 

The clink of silver on china. Fingertips brushing against Crowley’s left palm. He closes his hand around Aziraphale’s fingers, who squeezes his knuckles in response. 

“You would do the same for me,” Aziraphale says. 

Crowley looks up. Aziraphale is smiling. His eyes are very blue. 

“Yes,” Crowley says.

Entwined together, they are good.

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to connect with me on [Twitter @Metallic_Sweet](https://twitter.com/Metallic_Sweet)!
> 
> [Now with a mixtape on Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuvZuvQ7XxvDZscwhT4OGW501-roV_2PA)


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